


Off the Grid

by doctor_jones



Series: Down on Copperline [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, down on copperline, steve adjusting to modern life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_jones/pseuds/doctor_jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever-present connectivity takes a bit of getting used to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off the Grid

**Author's Note:**

> _I_ have days like this, so I have to imagine it'd be pretty bad for Steve right out of the ice.
> 
> Part of Down on Copperline, my series about Steve adjusting to modern life. You can find me on Tumblr at shackletons-sardines. Comments and critiques very welcome.

_What the shit god damn_

Steve thrashed awake as some - electronic - what is that? A song? That’s too much beeping to be a song - pounded like a railroad spike into his head. He lifted - wait, no - he lifted… ugh. HE LIFTED HIS ARM, after untangling it from the bedsheets, and smacked his phone until the noise, blessedly, stopped.

He tilted the screen. ALARM SNOOZED, it read. That’s… odd. His alarm was a plain ringing noise, he was sure of it, he’d set it himse…

 _Sam._ Steve narrowed his eyes. Time to change his passcode, apparently. Again.

He all but threw the covers off, kicking them onto the floor, and swung his legs out of bed. The instant that his toes touched carpet, three different electronic devices in various spots around the apartment went PING.

> Nat (7:31 am): What u doing today?

Steve tossed the phone on the couch as he made his way to the kitchen. The bowl in the sink looked pretty clean, so he poured some cereal into it and chugged half the quart of milk straight out of the carton in the fridge. He’d just popped a few Cheerios in his mouth - who needs a spoon - when his laptop screen lit up, the notification pulsing brightly: SHIELD DAILY BRIEFING. A bulleted list of topics scrolled next to it.

Yeah, okay. Steve closed the laptop and kept crunching. Nothing on that list they’d need him for.

The phone pinged again. He carried his breakfast over to the couch and dropped onto it, propping his feet on the coffee table and balancing the bowl on his stomach. Left hand: Cheerio duty. Right hand: phone.

> 7:35am MSNBC - MSNBC Daily Headlines  
>  7:37am Clint Barton - Hey do you want to go to this thing, I ha…

Steve flicked the phone to silent and set it face down next to him. Not enough for the world to keep on spinning, seems like; it’s got to give you status updates every thirty seconds. He chased a Cheerio that had fallen between the couch cushions. You know, for all that it plays into the back-in-my-day stereotype, there’s something to be said for the ability to walk away sometimes -

The god damn alarm started up again.

Steve jumped, and the bowl tumbled to the floor, cereal rolling literally everywhere. Something inside his head went  _snap_.

“Will everything just”

He grabbed the phone.

“Shut”

He whipped the phone, sidearm, straight through the glass of the window and into the street below.

“UP.”

Satisfyingly, a car happened by at that very moment, crushing the phone into teeny unrecognizable bits.

Steve stood still, breathing heavily, jaw clenched. Half the living room floor was covered in glass shards, and the other half in cereal. 

Time for a day off, maybe.

Okay. Ooookay. Step one: put some shoes on. Steve took a deep, slow breath. He headed back to the bedroom for his slippers, and then made his way around the apartment, powering off every device that could possibly ping, beep, or jangle a notification at him. Don’t need a repeat of that little disaster.

Step two: clean up your mess. The largest chunks of glass went into a shoebox, which went into a plastic bag, which went into the trash. Then the vacuum cleaner, for the smaller bits and the cereal. Once the carpet was clean and the bowl back in the sink, the heat started to leave Steve’s face. But the busted window... That was still twisting his gut a little.

Step three: get dressed. T-shirt, jeans, shoes. Steve was pretty sure he’d seen a hardware store maybe three blocks over on one of his runs. He’d head that way, and if he couldn’t find it, well, he’d ask somebody. Grab the keys, lock the door, and… Ah, wait, forgot his ph- nope, don’t have one of those anymore. Never mind.

It took Steve a half hour to find the hardware store. He asked two passersby and finally a server at a nearby coffee shop, but there it was, three blocks over and two blocks down. Then he had to buy a tape measure and go all the way back home to get the size of the windowpane. She never would have admitted it, but the saleslady was definitely laughing at him.

A sack of tools, a sheet of glass, and four hours of swearing later, Steve was pretty pleased with his handiwork. Some of the putty was lumpy and uneven, and he’d have to wait a little while longer to clean the glass, but from where he stood in the kitchen, you could hardly tell. And what’s more, he hadn’t thought about anything but glazier’s points and linseed oil for hours. His head felt ten pounds lighter, and the pain that had been haunting his temples was gone.

Steve reached into the fridge and twisted the cap off a bottle of beer. He raised it toward the windowpane, a tiny, apologetic toast to it and everything behind it.  _Sorry and thanks._  He took a long pull. Beer never tasted as good as it did after a day of hard work.

He set the beer down and pulled the laptop over. It powered back up, flashing a list of SHIELD emails and notifications that Steve immediately closed. Time enough for those later. He pulled up his personal email and opened a new message.

 

> To: Nat  
>  Subject: Tomorrow?  
>  Hey Nat, you busy tomorrow? I need to buy a new phone.


End file.
